The Immolation of Alessa Gillespie
by Kid Dynamite 090
Summary: A possible account of Alessa Gillespie during her mothers ritual and later hospitalization to awaken the Order's God. Set during 'Origin' game time.


"But Mommy-"  
"Hush, child! Hush!"  
"But Mommy…! What are you doing?"  
The aged looking woman was lighting candles in a small room on the second floor of her and the girls two story home. The two had a modest home in the working and business district of a town called Silent Hill; a town with a deep secret.

"Do you remember, Alessa, what Mother wants to do?" the aged woman said as she continued to place and light candles.  
Besides the flicker of candles, the room was dark. There was a dingy mattress, a few end tables and a few other pieces of household junk around. The little girl of only seven, with short black hair sat on the mattress, looking toward her mother.  
"Yes, but I don't understand."  
The woman, Dahlia, looked from the candle to her daughter. Dahlia took the child's hands in her own and said in an almost endearing tone, "You are special, special and powerful to the cause of the Order."

After giving the tiny hands a light squeeze, the woman went back to her candles. Still, little Alessa kept asking questions.  
"Why are you lighting all the candles?"  
"Part of the ritual, the immolation."  
"What does… immolation mean?"  
"Child, you need not worry. What you _should_ be concerning yourself with is the future."

For a while, Alessa just watched as her mother set up more and more and more candles.

"…The other people tease me, Mommy."  
"Pay no mind to mortal fools."  
"They call me a witch…and say mean things…"  
"You have a destiny of the highest tier, they mean nothing."  
Nothing she said stopped her mother or created any emotion in the woman. Dahlia was completely focused on her task at hand.

After a bit, Dahlia finally stopped setting up her candles, now which covered the whole perimeter of the room in very close contact, and kneed in front of her daughter.

"You are what the Order needs. Do you remember in the church? That window?"  
"The one of God?"  
"That's the one. You would often stare at it."  
"I love God… and I prey often…," Alessa said.  
"Soon, my child, soon you will be the answer to the Order's divine ideas," Dahlia said, as if it was a promise.

Dahlia then stood up, facing Alessa, and bowed her head. She began to mutter and then chant in a very low voice, almost a whisper. Alessa tried but couldn't make out anything.

"It is now we part, Alessa," Dahlia said after her prayer and made way to the door.  
"But mommy, I just want to be with you. Just the two of us. Please understand. Don't leave me!" begged Alessa.

"In time, Alessa, in time," the mother said and left the room.  
Once her mother was outside, Alessa could hear the distinct sound of the door locking behind her. Feeling alone and abandoned, the young child began to cry. Alessa hated the town and hated her life. She was in constant social pain, either from teasing or being uncared for by her mother, and fear. She feared the people in her mother's Order. They paid special attention to her, but it was never caring or kind. It was as if the members, especially Dahlia, were intent on using her. Alessa knew there was something about her, she could see things that didn't happen yet, and she felt drawn to people and things. She felt a connection with God that even she couldn't understand or explain.  
The only person who gave her any comfort or friendship was a girl a year or so younger. Her name was Claudia. She also had mean parents and the two would color and play cards (games Alessa would always win). The thing the two enjoyed most, however, was coming up with their own world. A world where there was no pain, no suffering. There was only salvation and fulfillment.  
Alessa kept crying and wished she could be with her friend now. She recently had a birthday and Alessa made a card for her 'little sister'.  
"I don't understand...!" cried Alessa, still alone in the candlelit room.  
She truly didn't. Her mother said there was something special about her, and that she was very important to the Order, but she didn't know why. All she could gather, was that she was very vital. Scared and confused, the girl sat in her room, hoping, praying once more to the Order's God that someway, somehow she would get out of this life.

Alessa waited in that room for the longest time, until she realized something was deadly, deadly wrong. She could see smoke coming from under the door and immediately yanked open the door only to be confronted by a wall of flames. With the candles in close proximity to each other and the door, soon the entire room caught on fire, with little Alessa crying and soon sweating in the middle of it. The single window in the room blew out and only make the nearby flames rise. Succumbing to smoke inhalation, her perceptions got cloudy and she soon past out a hair from the flames which were devouring the very flammable mattress and items in the room.

"You alive!?"  
That was the next thing that Alessa heard. She was still near unconscious, and in excruciating pain, but also felt herself being carried. As bad as it did to open her eyes, she could see the flames red and orange rage and at some point, felt a blast of air and saw nothing but dark. A man had sent the fire and quickly ran in the house and found Alessa near burned to death. Alessa passed out again due to pain once more, just before her hero also collapsed on the front lawn of the near unrecognizable two stories.

~

Pain. Unimaginable pain was all that Alessa was feeling. Alessa could barely see, but what she could see was not good. She was in a small room, like a basement that was dark, damp and a bit rusty even.. There was an end table, a chair and not much else. She was completely alone. All Alessa did was lie there, wondering if she was dead. No, if she was dead, how could she be in so much pain and feel such loneliness?  
She didn't know how long it was, but at some point she heard two people enter the room.  
"Does anyone know?" asked a familiar voice.  
"…Mommy….?" Alessa tried to whisper, but it was painful to even move her lips.  
"No," said a mans voice, "Everyone thinks she's died, exclude you, a few Order members, the attending nurse and of course myself."  
Dahlia looked over at her daughter, her body burn and bandaged. You could barely tell there was a little girl under the weight of oozing skin.

"She's a saint among the Order. She'll be kept alive by my prayers, and the ritual was, indeed, successful regardless of the interference."  
"So it's inside her?" the man asked.  
"The God is inside her body, waiting. Waiting to be birthed," assured Dahlia.  
"When?"  
"When there has been enough suffering. A God not subjected to torture and pain cannot create a euphoria or paradise. God must know how we followers, how Her birth mother and daughter, suffer for her."

There was silence before Alessa heard them both leave and a heavy door shut. Once more, she was alone and confused.  
Inside me, she thought. She didn't feel anything inside her, especially not their God. All she felt was burning.

Day or night, Alessa couldn't tell the difference. The only thing she could tell was that she was slowly but surely losing her sanity. All she had was her own thoughts, and she was beginning to think _maybe_ there was something inside her. It felt as if something was feeding off her. Feeding off her sanity and made her feel even worse beyond the burns and crippling loneliness.

Since her mother and the man, the only person who visited the burnt incubator was a nurse. Alessa couldn't see her, for having her eyes open pained her beyond belief, nor could she speak to her. All she could feel was the nurse replacing her bandages and keeping her in care regularly. That care was the most compassion she ever received from an adult. The single most kind gesture she ever received; was a life sustaining change of bloody wrappings.  
Alessa assumed she was going to die. She prayed, wanted to die. The thing she was carrying was driving her mad, and as the years went by, she began to contemplate what it really meant. For _years _she was kept alive by her mothers prayer and to carry God. Years. Years of torture. She had not gotten any better, and could sometimes hear her nurse wonder how on Earth she was alive. Ever minute of every day Alessa wished for death, because even the most painful death would be a sweet release of what she suffered through for many long years. All the poor child could do was to ponder. Think and imagine. She reflected on her memories in the town, her pain, and her abilities. She gave life and personality to the monsters she used to draw on paper and imagined not a perfect world, but a demonic one of fog and monsters.  
That was her life. A painful array of blackness and suffering. But what hurt the most was not so much the fact her mother never loved her, her peers thought of her as a freak, that her religious connection was only interested in using her or that her life was a circle of hell. What hurt the most was that regardless of her prayers, her hope, her belief; she was trapped as she was. And it didn't even look like death would be so merciful as to set herself free.


End file.
